The day when the wallpaper fell off

Norma J. Shattuck

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, March 29, 2006

It's no secret that improving a home can bring moments of "What'll-we-do-now?" panic. I've experienced heart-stopping moments as a homeowner. One house was a rarity that needed almost nothing done; another was a near-ruin inhabited by a fierce family of feral cats that -- tooth and claw -- snarlingly resisted eviction from the attic.

Here's a list of situations that seemed dire but proved survivable:

-- Walking down the stairs in a home under remodeling siege, I was startled to see a grotesque image of myself in a huge, two-section, floor-to-ceiling mirror just installed. It called up images of Orson Welles' mirrored fun-house scene in "The Lady From Shanghai."

-- I lost my appetite for breakfast after taking in a dismal sight in the dining room, repapered the day before but seemingly attacked by a poltergeist. Every strip of wallpaper had slithered off and adhered nastily to a newly refinished hardwood floor.

Result: The manufacturer replaced the wallpaper after much give-and-take on the arcane subject of the suspected nexus between glue failure and summer heat.

-- A cramped hallway bathroom that had seemed perfect for foil wallpaper clearly wasn't. Its reflective qualities not only failed to make the room seem larger but also lent a sort of Nevada brothel look.

Outcome: Enduring years of steering guests toward a less-embarrassing biffy.

-- Having peeked cheerily into a kitchen astir with remodeling efforts, I hoped I was hallucinating when I noticed that the ceiling had been heavily braced. We were experiencing, it seems, the unanticipated but imminent threat of a bathtub crashing through from the floor above.